All the interesting recipes I find while searching my favorite blogs.
And any other recipes I find that I absolutely HAVE to share!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Concord Grape Jelly

We decided to make jelly instead of wine this year, since last year's wine isn't quite ready to sample yet and we're not sure if we want to make any adjustments to the recipe yet. So the plan is to alternate years and this year it's Jelly-Makin' time!This also means I have to jump in and actually can the jelly...a process I've been avoiding. I'm SO afraid of poisoning my friends and family!But I'll bite the bullet and figure it out...once I get the recipe figured out! All the recipes I have found thus far call for 3.5 lbs of grapes. When I weighed ours this morning, I came up with 20.5 lbs that are usable. Rounded up a teeny bit, that's 21 lbs = 6 times the "normal" recipe!So here's the re-calculated recipe, adapted from the Concord Grape Jelly I found on Allrecipes.com:

INGREDIENTS21 pounds Concord grapes3 cup water42 cups white sugar (21 lbs!!!)3 (36 fluid ounce) containers liquid pectinDIRECTIONSSort and wash grapes, and remove stems. Place them into a large kettle and crush them. Add water, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and extract juice. Allow the juice to stand in a cool place overnight to prevent the formation of crystals in the jelly.Strain the juice through a double thickness of damp cheesecloth. Measure 24 cups of the juice into a large pot. Stir in the sugar. Quickly bring to a full rolling boil. Stir in pectin, and allow to boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat, and skim off foam. Pour into hot sterile jars, and process for 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

So I've already washed, removed stems, etc...now all I have to do is dig out our turkey fryer so I have a large enough pot for all of it!

But holy tamoly! That's a lot of sugar and grapes! It'll yeild 48 pints! Do I even want all that jelly? Where will I store it all?! I guess I know what y'all are getting for christmas this year!